About H&E
Founded in 1961, H&E Equipment Services is one of the largest equipment rental companies in the nation, providing a higher standard in equipment rentals, sales, parts, and service. With locations across the United States, leveraging their national fleet of equipment with a local approach, working closely with customers to understand their needs and provide them reliability, fair prices, and the support of a first-class service team.
Meet The Vice President of Investor Relations at H&E
Jeffrey Chastain is currently the Vice President of Investor Relations at H&E and has worked in investor relations for over 30 years. Throughout his career, he has leveraged his in-depth understanding of global Capital and Equity markets and ability to forge strong and trusting relationships, to build shareholder value by instilling investor confidence in a company’s strategy and goals. He has built a reputation as an industry-recognized subject matter expert with investment and financial communities worldwide.
Jeff has always looked at his position from the standpoint of ‘how can I become better? How can I become a better investor relations officer and help build the company's reputation in the financial markets have done that over the years?’ His answer? Utilizing third-party services like Irwin.
Why Switch to Irwin?
Before Implementing Irwin, Jeff had used many other leading data providers on the market but found them very cumbersome. It was really important to Jeff to choose a platform that H&E would get value from, so he was careful in his selection process. Being the sole IR practitioner at the company, he wanted to evaluate the third-party platforms they had for IR critically.
“In the case of Irwin, not only is it a more user-friendly product, but I can access its full capabilities. Every platform has IRM functionality, for example. Still, other platforms are cumbersome and difficult to understand. Unless I had a full-time person spending all their time learning these complex and cumbersome tools, I would not be able to record all of my interactions with the financial markets accurately.
When I saw Irwin, I realized, wow, this is so easy to use, I can click on a couple of things, input the information I need, and then the record is there.”
High-quality data, better product, more value.
With any tool on the market, IROs can get access to data - it’s the added value and ease of use that help Jeff and the H&E team elevate their investor relations.
“I could get much of the data from any platform, like consensus estimates, for example - but Irwin takes it a step past the data. When you get into targeting investors, many platforms have targeting services that you pay extra for on top of a platform fee, but with Irwin, that value is built right into the platform. When you're headed out on the road, it’s easy to set up your filters and get high-priority names for that trip. If, for example, we have some open time on a trip we’ve planned and the bank can’t come up with any more names, I’ll go into Irwin and grab high-value targets and provide them with that information.
I was just reviewing some of the recent work we’ve done, and it kind of makes you sit back and realize: I’ve had more effective conversations with people because I’m making use of the product, whereas in the past, I would have conversations with people and then have nothing to show for it.”
Leveraging Irwin Assistant to Help Upload Data and Save Time
As an IRO, you can collect copious amounts of information from meetings, consistent travel, and the many conversations you have along the way. Irwin Assistant has helped Jeff with keeping his records updated:
“Instead of spending all my time inputting many records, Irwin Assistant has been quite useful for me and building my itinerary. I’ll receive an itinerary from the banks we’re working with and send that to Irwin Assistant to get it into our account. I can then go in and make edits about the particulars after they’ve happened, such as meeting notes, but the main thing is that the data is already there, which was the most time-consuming part.”
Irwin Assistant, an exclusive service for Irwin clients, allows you to save time and effort on data maintenance, uploads, activity tracking, and tagging —allowing IR teams to spend more time on strategic activities.
More effective use of management’s time
As an IRO, a big part of your role is ensuring that your management team is prepared and that you’re making the most of their time. A big part of that is making sure they’re in front of the right investors:
“Investors may sign up to hear what you have to say because they are interested in your industry, but that’s not the best use of a CEO’s time. Thanks to Irwin, we have a higher degree of confidence in their level of interest in our company."
Delivering the right metrics to your management team helps to solidify the value of the investor relations role within your business and instill confidence that the activities and events your management team is participating in are turning into real, valuable growth opportunities:
“I can get a lot of shareholder data right from my Irwin dashboard - I can see really important information right up front. I want to turn something over to management that shows them that the two days we spent in Chicago, for example, were a good use of time. I can easily show who we spoke to and what we’re showing regarding their current ownership in the company.
Sometimes the results are immediate, and sometimes they’re building blocks, and you’re setting the groundwork for future ownership. Either way, management needs to know that the time they’re spending on the road is paying dividends, and Irwin gives you a way to show that. “
Significant Time Saving using Irwin’s Enhanced Board Reporting
Jeff and the team at H&E subscribe to Irwin’s Enhanced Board Reporting, a service offered exclusively to Irwin clients as part of our Capital Markets Strategy Service.
“There’s the added benefit of preparing presentations for the board, and without question, we’ve been able to come up with a better package of information for our board than what they were receiving previously.
"I would say that Irwin’s Enhanced Board Reporting service easily saves me a couple of days of my time each quarter.”
Support from capital markets experts
At Irwin, we’re committed to service excellence, and our team of Account Managers are also Capital markets experts.
“I think the customer support has been probably as good as I've ever had. I have worked with many firms that provide IR support, and while you can reach customer support, you may not be able to reach individuals that can solve your problems."
Every time I reach out to my Account Manager at Irwin, within 30 minutes, all my questions are answered. He spends the time with me and makes himself available on short notice. The customer support is very responsive.”
A message to IROs considering Irwin
“Irwin is intuitive, and if you don't have the time to do everything, there's a process available to you where someone else can do that work for you, and I would encourage them to look into it. The platform, the targeting capability, the CRM, the service, and added benefits like Irwin Assistant and Capital Markets Strategy Services all roll up into an offering that’s well worth it, and much better than I’ve had in the past”.
